


Not For Hate

by GretchenSinister



Series: My Top 10 JackRabbit Fics [6]
Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Angst, M/M, but they also definitely die, dead character does not REALLY stay dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-09
Updated: 2020-01-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:40:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22181194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Original Prompt: "If you’ve read the Sandman comics, then you’ll know that Dream is the main protagonist, and he has a brother/sister called Desire who loves messing with him, to the point of near murder and other vindictive things.But each time, Desire makes it apparent that it’s doing it because it wants to get a rise out of Dream.But then (spoilers for the Sandman comics!)…When Dream dies, and is replaced by another version of him, Desire becomes quiet and sad. Because Desire can only show love through vindictiveness and cruelty, and it wasn’t crueler to anyone than it was to its brother Dream.SO ANYWAY, THE ROTG PROMPT:Jack was always messing with Bunny, ruining his work, bringing blizzards, generally making Bunny hate him. And the more Bunny responded with hate, the more Jack messed with him, because otherwise, Bunny wouldn’t notice him AT ALL.Then one day, Jack goes too far, and inadvertently causes Bunny’s death...[cut for length]"Jack’s not 100% cruel to Bunny in this, it’s just that they were always at odds because of their natures. Opens at Bunny 1.0’s funeral. Includes slight allusions to blacksand.
Relationships: E. Aster Bunnymund/Jack Frost
Series: My Top 10 JackRabbit Fics [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1589287
Kudos: 29
Collections: JackRabbit Short Fics





	Not For Hate

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on 1/14/2015.
> 
> Here's the rest of the prompt: "And when the new guardian of Easter is appointed, Jack is heartbroken and sad, and no longer ruins this guardian’s Easter. The new guardian thinks it’s because Jack has become kinder, but no–it’s because Jack doesn’t love this one. 
> 
> TL;DR Jack keeps ruining everything Bunny does and Bunny hates him more and more, which is fine because at least he NOTICES Jack. Then Jack gets crueler and crueler until one day, he goes too far and indirectly causes Bunny’s death. Cue new Easter guardian, noticing that Jack’s become less cruel–but not because he’s kinder. It’s because he doesn’t love him like he did Bunny."

What does that look on Sandy’s face mean? _You must have known this would happen someday, the way you both were._ That’s what Jack imagines, and he doesn’t ask Sandy to clarify. There’s no need to, not right now.  
  
Before them, Bunny–can it really be Bunny? So still and so quiet?–lies on a bier, curled on his side, pillowed and surrounded by sweet, fresh grasses and flowers. His face is utterly peaceful, his fur smooth–the ice has been combed out of it. His arm guards and bandolier rest neatly by his feet.  
  
“Jack,” Tooth says kindly, though why should she be kind to him at this moment? But she was kind even when Jack brought Bunny to her palace, his fur clumped with ice, ice that wasn’t melting, ice that could have only one source. “It’s his nature to return,” she says. “All it takes is a little push.”  
  
“Will he remember?” Jack asks, clinging to his staff like it’s the only real thing in the room, would that it was.   
  
“I don’t know,” Tooth says. Her wings flare out and an edge of steel enters her voice.   
  
_Finally,_ Jack thinks.   
  
“But you will help us with this whether you will it or no.”  
  
“You think I don’t want–no. Wait, you still want my help, even now?”  
  
Tooth tilts her head. “Want? No, we need your help. There must be winter before there can be spring again. That’s not a pyre Bunny’s on. It needs to be touched with your ice. The deepest winter you can manage. Then, we’ll leave him in the Warren. When your ice melts, he will wake.”  
  
“What if my ice doesn’t melt?” Jack asks. He sees Sandy shake his head out of the corner of his eye.  
  
“In the Warren? It will, Jack. Come on,” Tooth says, and pulls him forward. And he doesn’t resist, for what would that look like now, with Sandy watching his back and North looking up from his vigil at the head of the bier to see him approach.  
  
He doesn’t want to touch Bunny with his ice again, that’s how he ruined everything, and yet, and yet…if there’s a chance to set things right, he has to take it. _I hope you remember_ he thinks, as the grasses around Bunny grow golden and the seedpods of the flowers swell before disappearing under a thick, heavy layer of ice.  
  


* * *

  
  
“Jack, it’s good to see you,” Bunny says, next summer at the Warren.   
  
Jack nods. This is the first time he’s been here since he covered Bunny with ice, and, well…  
  
He stands awkwardly in the egg-shaped doorway, not leaning against the frame as he used to. There are hinges now where his shoulder would rest, anyway, and a new door to Bunny’s house, one that can close. Everything inside is free of dust, not just the painting table and the places where Bunny stored his armor when he slept. The armor’s hanging there now. The air smells like paint and chocolate, but not like anything else.  
  
“Just give me a few moments,” Bunny says. “I expect you want to talk.” The green robe that covers him from the neck down sweeps the floor as he takes his brushes to the basin to clean them.   
  
When Jack can see the painting table more clearly, he’s not sure if he wants to stay at all. The paints are all in order, of course. The brushes and pigments wait in the same places as before. But the surface has been scraped and polished and all the years and years of paint spatters and drips are gone.  
  
“Thank you for letting me get on with Easter with no trouble this year,” Bunny says. No paint sticks to his brownish fur as his clever paws clean the gray brush.   
  
_“It’s practical, ya drongo!”_  
  
Jack looks away. “Yeah, well, you’re welcome.”  
  
“I mean it,” Bunny says. “It was already difficult without any specific memories, and the others told me to expect more or less chaos, generally more, from you.”  
  
Maybe Jack ought to get straight to the point. Maybe it’ll cut this visit short. Maybe it’ll make Bunny chase him out of the Warren with a boomerang whistling past his head to warn him to stay out. “Did they also tell you that I killed you?”  
  
Bunny wrinkles his nose. “It’s an occupational hazard of being Spring, Jack. I can’t be that and entirely permanent, now can I? And you don’t seem particularly malevolent to me. We do what we are meant to do, and what we _can_ do. Frankly, as Winter, I’m surprised you aren’t familiar with being slain now and then. Young men are more usual than rabbits for this sort of thing.”  
  
“You offering to do it? Tit for tat?” Jack says with a nervous grin.  
  
Bunny looks affronted. “Certainly not, Jack! Whyever would I want to do so? And it’s the middle of summer!”  
  
“Oh. Uh, yeah, that makes sense.”  
  
“Was there anything else you wanted to talk about? Let me make a pot of chocolate.”  
  
But we’ve only just met! Jack wants to shout. He’d shared chocolate with Bunny exactly once, after years of being a Guardian. They didn’t talk while they drank it either. Bunny said it would ruin the flavor. Remembering that day feels strangely similar to when Pitch broke his staff.  
  
“That’s all right,” Jack says with a smile that feels utterly unconvincing. “I just wanted to find out what you knew about me so far. I’ve really got to–got to be going.”  
  
“Farewell, Jack!” Bunny calls after him, as he leaves without even having fully crossed the threshold.   
  
Jack   
  
Jack  
  
Jack  
  
_Frostbite_  
  


* * *

  
  
“I don’t understand, I don’t understand, why’s he so different? I never wanted this, I didn’t, I didn’t.” Jack curls up on Sandy’s cloud. At least the small warm hand stroking his hair seems like as much of an anchor as his staff. “You didn’t change, when you came back.”  
  
Sandy meets Jack’s eyes unblinkingly. Pitch didn’t truly kill me, he tells him.  
  
“What? But he…”  
  
He knew I would be changed if he did. It’s happened before, to both of us. Not for a few thousand years. It’s too lonely, and we…Sandy’s smile is small. Well, you didn’t kill Bunny because you hated him.  
  
“No,” whispers Jack. “Bunny doesn’t feel anything, now, though. And I…it’s not _him_ , Sandy!”  
  
Not yet, Sandy signs. But if it’s meant to be, he will be. So be careful. Going on can hurt, but starting over can be worse.  
  
“Don’t think I’ll forget that now,” Jack says, though he’d like to forget about everything but dreamsand for a good long while.   
  
Wish I could have warned you, Sandy thinks, as he brushes Jack’s hair back from his forehead and leaves dreamsand—not enough, but there’s never enough for this—behind.


End file.
